John Force Racing, Inc., NHRA drag racing's most successful Funny Car team, announced Thursday an
historic expansion that for the first time will give it a presence in a professional racing
category other than the one in which it has been dominant for almost a quarter century.

While the team again will campaign four fuel cars, one will be noticeably different from the
others. After winning a record 217 NHRA Funny Car races and 17
Winston, Powerade and Full Throttle Funny Car championships, JFR this year for the first time in
its 35-year NHRA history will field a Top Fuel dragster.

Powered by the potent Ford BOSS 500 nitro engine developed by JFR in collaboration with Ford
Racing, the Castrol EDGE Top Fuel dragster will be driven by rookie Brittany Force and maintained
by crew chief Dean "Guido" Antonelli and assistant crew chief Eric Lane.

Antonelli, who guided Ashley Force Hood to the Auto Club of Southern California's Road to the
Future Award (Rookie-of-the-Year) in 2007 and tuned Force to victory in last year's inaugural
Traxxas Nitro Shootout, gets his first assignment in Top Fuel as mentor to another of Force's
racing daughters.

Lane, 39, moves to Top Fuel after 12 seasons with the Auto Club Ford Mustang Funny Car, the last
four as assistant crew chief to Jimmy Prock.

"I'm excited because I've only ever worked on Funny Cars," Antonelli said. "Just in the testing
we've done so far, it appears you can be quite a bit more aggressive with a dragster.

"It's an exciting opportunity and I'm honored that Brittany would want me to be her crew chief and
that John trusts me with her," said the man who celebrated 10 series championships as the Team
Leader on Force's crew from 1995 through 2006.

Meanwhile, Force is looking forward to the new season for multiple reasons, the least of which is
not the fact that Mike Neff will be back calling the shots on his Castrol GTX Mustang, just as he
did when Force won his last championship in 2010.

The 134-time tour winner also believes that reducing the Funny Car inventory will make his team
better overall.

"With four cars, you're always running into each other," said the 134-time tour winner. "I think
we'll be a better with three cars. Courtney and Neff ran great last year and we've worked really
hard to make sure we have three Fords that can run for the Mello Yello championship this year."

Indeed, JFR President Robert Hight, driver of the Auto Club Ford, and 24-year-old Courtney Force,
second year driver of the Traxxas Ford, also are looking forward to the new season.

Hight, the 2009 series champion and the biggest winner in the Funny Car category over his eight
seasons (27 wins), will try to keep alive a trio of streaks in a car on which his crew chief will
be assisted this year by veteran Danny DeGennaro.

A 43-year-old former world class marksman, Hight has won at least two races in every one of his
eight pro season, has started No. 1 at least once every year and has led the Funny Car points every
year, an performance without precedent.

As for Courtney, she just hopes to maintain the momentum generated in her Rookie-of-the-Year season
in the Traxxas Ford.

"I'm really looking forward to the new season," said the spokeswoman for Ford's Driving Skills for
Life initiative. "Hopefully, we can just pick up where we left off. We finished in the fifth spot
and I really couldn't have asked for a better first year. I still plan to focus on the basics of
driving but, at the same time, I'm looking forward to pushing myself, learning new things and
improving my driving skills.

"Having my sister Brittany out there racing in the Top Fuel category for the first time is just
going to make the 2013 season that much more exciting. I know she is really pumped up and ready to
race. I can't wait to kick off the season at Pomona."

Force also is excited, especially about his return to Castrol GTX colors after several years
promoting other Castrol brands including Castrol GTX HIGH MILEAGE, Castrol EDGE, Castrol SYNTEC,
Castrol START UP and others.

"We started with the Castrol GTX brand and after 26 years, they're still with us," said the
63-year-old racing icon. "I've still got some racing in me and this year is special because I have
Robert and two of my girls racing with me. When you're a dad, you want your kids to be involved in
the things you do and to have all four of my girls working in the business is really something
that's hard to believe.

"Ashley's running John Force entertainment and Adria, my oldest, who's married to Robert, has
always handled the financials as CFO of John Force Racing, Inc."